Tiger of Mysore says gerroff

I WAS IN MYSORE yesterday, a pleasant city a few hours drive from Bangalore. This is the third time I’ve been there but didn’t get a chance this time to go to the temple of Chamunda, on the hills around Mysore. She is also known as Mahishasuramardini, and this is a shakti pitha.

Before we reached Mysore, we stopped off at the Ranganatha Temple, part of the complex of Tipu Sultan, the “tiger of Mysore”, and the man who defeated the British and was then defeated by Wellington, before he became Wellesley.

This is the temple of Ranganath, very busy yesterday and only a stone’s throw from Tipu Sultan’s summer palace. Tipu had a lot of palaces. There are Tipu palaces everywhere. Everywhere. The apocryphal tale is they are all connected by very long tunnels, although the entrances to these seem to have been totally lost.

On to Mysore and of course the palace of the Maharaja of Mysore, which was only started in the late 19th century. He is Mr Maharaja now of course, but some of his family still lives in the palace.

The Wodeyars were installed by the Brits after Tipu Sultan was toppled, but the tiger motif still remains. This tiger is not to be touched. Or rather toutched. ♥